We soon reach the spot where I heard the intruders, and it takes only thirty more seconds before Seanna is beckoning us over, pointing to indentations in the damp grass. “Three or four,” she agrees with my assessment quietly.
Tara’s gaze flicks from me to the crannog, which is little more than alighter spot in the white draped across the lake. “What did they say? The exact words.”
“One wanted to keep watching, because they didn’t know how many of us there were. Another said it wouldn’t matter to Gallchobhar, and that they already knew enough. That their staying until the fog cleared would risk discovery.” I shrug. “Then they left.”
“Miach. Lead the way?” Tara has accepted what I told her and is moving on.
Miach, the best tracker of our group, nods. His loosely bound blond hair swings as he studies the ground in the flickering light. He sets off at a soundless run. We follow.
The night air is damp and cloying in my lungs as the five of us lope first along the lapping waters, then up the unwooded, gently sloping hillside. Miach leads us unfalteringly, bringing us to a brief halt only twice to crouch and check the ground.
“They joined up with more. At least a dozen of them now,” he says grimly after the second time.
We press on for ten minutes. Fearghus catches up to us. The others ignite new rushlights. Another ten after that. Up and down slopes, over gurgling brooks. Our pace is hard. Our quarry’s direction never changes.
The pulsing in my head returns. Faint at first, but growing stronger and very much in the direction we’re travelling. I’m about to draw Tara’s attention when she holds up a hand, slowing us. “Sound ahead,” she whispers between breaths that mist around her rushlight before she crouches, thrusting the burning tip into the damp ground.
My ears haven’t caught anything, but the others follow suit without hesitation, plunging us into near darkness. We creep forward, crest a rise. The fog has thinned a little and there’s the tiniest halo of light, slightly down from us in a short valley. Its bobbing shows it moving away from us, albeit slowly. The band we’re chasing is in no hurry.
The pulsing in my head isn’t coming from where the light is, though. It’s farther away.
“Fearghus and Conor. Seanna and Miach.” Tara points in a direction for each pair of names. They slip into the white.
Tara keeps her gaze fixed on the slow-moving glow ahead. “Will you fight?”
I’m the only one left, so no question who she’s asking. “Yes.” I’m annoyed by her doubt, but this isn’t the time.
She glances at me. My vision has adjusted enough to see that her eyes have turned completely black.
She nods, and jogs forward.
I follow.
The next minutes pass in tense silence as the light ahead grows stronger through the fog. We slow. Skulk in the wake of the group, just beyond the reach of their torches. They are talking among themselves. Their chatter is comfortable as they pick their way along the stony bed of a stream. No sense that they’re in danger. The babbling water masks our approach. The backs of our quarry resolve from the murk.
There’s no warning, no signal that I can see. Tara hefts her weapon. Darts forward.
Impales the rearmost man through the back, the gore-soaked point of her spear emerging from his chest as he gasps a last quiet, pained breath.
Even as the others in the party whirl toward us, weapons ready, shadows emerge from the white either side and death follows. Three more fold soundlessly to the soft ground and another screams in pain as she collapses, writhing, Fearghus’s spear through her stomach. Hers will not be a quick death.
Five down, and they’re only starting to understand that they’re under attack. There are nine left. Six men and three women. Startled, but armed and quick to engage. Warriors all.
Weapons flash and shields rattle as spears lick out. On the right, Fearghus is bellowing a battle cry as he bullies forward into the fray, his heavy spear more of a club as it swings down with a sickening crack, while Conor laughs manically as he engages, quick and lithe, flowing golden hair wild as it whips around him. On the left, Seanna strikes high and as a shield comes up to meet it Miach goes low, already-bloodied spear goring a knee. The unfortunate defender screams and as he twists his protection back downward, Seanna slices his throat with a flick. The two flow on. Perfectly in tandem. No pause. All smooth, grim precision.
Directly in front of me, Tara is sprinting past the man she killed, sliding away from a thrust and spinning low, gracefully hamstringing a warrior before straightening and pinning her to the ground. A short blade flashes out at her and she uses her spear, still impaled in the writhing woman, to vault the attack and kick the man’s arm aside. She twists as she lands, wrenching the spear out again and flicking its darkly glistening edge around to scythe across the next man’s face. He screams as he goes down, clutching the red gash where his eye was.
Six remaining—even numbers—but Fearghus roars and falls to one knee as a blade protrudes from his leg; Conor breaks off to come and help, barely deflecting a killing strike, holding back an onslaught on two fronts as Fearghus bares his teeth and tries to totter back to his feet. Seanna and Miach are still moving fluidly but they’re no longer advancing, their opponents wary of their synchronised movements, better weathering their attacks.
And Tara’s dervish of momentum is arrested by a tall, lean warrior with far superior reach to the shorter girl, and whose eyes have turned just as black as hers. Their dance is mesmeric. Dizzying. Frighteningly fast, impossible to follow.
It’s all horrific. A nightmare. But there’s no time to think about it. I slide in between Tara and another man coming at her left, blood pounding in my ears. Block his attack and engage.
The fiery-headed warrior whose spear thrust I just knocked aside smiles slowly as he squares off and takes in my missing arm, the expression clearly meant to intimidate. That’s good. Tara and her opponent are already clashing not more than ten feet away; my job here is simply to keep her from being flanked, and trust she can win on her own. If this man wants to waste time posturing, that’s all to the better.
He doesn’t waste it for long, unfortunately, smile turning to a sneer of effort as he hacks in at my left with a series of swift, probing strikes. Predictable, but no less dangerous because of it; I use several of the techniques I’ve been learning these past months, employing combinations of ground, body, and momentum to brace my defence where my left hand would once have sufficed. It’s not easy or natural, despite my practice. My movements feel rushed and rough. Desperate. I barely avoid having a spear tip buried in me several times.
And then something changes.
